Henrietta Black & the Gun Toting Maid
by LyssaWinterlace
Summary: A boy enters the Chamber of Secrets to save a girl nobody else would; a girl exits with her whole life ahead of her. When Harry Potter vanished, everything went to hell. Thus they moved to track him down, but the Boy Who Lived they were expecting to find was the furthest thing from the person they retrieved.


The bar was the furthest thing from seedy or dishevelled. Up-scale, posh and _very_ clean. Modern in the way only a Muggle establishment could be.

Except for the floating, neon coloured fairy lights and the exterior being a black phone booth. It's paint was peeling from years of battery by the elements and the local youth...

Within, circular tables and cushy, red seated booths dotted across the large, shiny wooden floorspace (as one may expect, the phone booth far bigger on the inside). The centre piece of the establishment, of course, being the bar in the dead centre of the room, encircling a large support pillar like a square ring.

Patrons were few. A trio of centaurs were huddled in the furthest corner from the door, a seafoam skinned hag was hissing complaints to a pale, mute woman (who could only be a banshee) across their small table just to the left,

And a young, human by the looks of it, woman sitting alone at the bar. Only looking up from the acrylic counter top when the entirety of their party had shuffled into the establishment.

What a motley crew. Wizened, aged and with a beard that reached his ankles, the Hogwarts Headmaster in a set of lime green and teal robes (with a matching pointed hat). Not quite as ancient in appearance, but still bordering on elderly, his grey haired Transfiguration Professor. And, comparatively babyish, though in fact in his thirties, the pale skinned and dark robed Potions Master of Hogwarts.

The trio entering the establishment with their wands discreetly drawn, only to feel inexorably compelled to put them away.

A jerk of the head from Severus Snape encouraged the rest of their party to cross the threshold into the somewhat dimly lit space. Two men and one woman, shaggy haired with a rough black beard and somewhat emaciated features, scruffy hair in dark brown with hazel eyes behind huge circular glasses and a truly minute woman with fiery red hair and piercing green eyes.

The Potters skulked in behind the ever confident Sirius Black, said man making a visibly reluctant beeline for the woman at the bar.

A woman who only looked their way as he approached.

Had it not been for the almond shaped eyes in that distinct shade of green, the ones that briefly widened at the sight of them all before falling back into the prior mask of indifference, they would not have believed that the dark haired woman at the bar was their target. Half smoked cigarette in one hand with the stem of a wine glass in the other; a sheer black dress ending at her thighs that highlighted her thin figure and showcased her shoulders and sides through a mesh like lace (and in some places, lack of such). Large dangling gold ear rings hanging from her lobes, with a smaller pair of bands higher up. All alongside black, glossy lips and similarly shiny black nails that clinked against the glass in her hand.

Contrary to most of the groups previous assumptions, she was in fact Harry James Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. The woman they needed to kill the Dark Lord...

"Double amaretto coke." She croaked as they drew in, the straw haired, crimson eyed bartender flicking a quick look between her and the approachers, whatever he saw in her eyes lead him to make her drink without a word. She turned to them, "How can I be of assistance?"

They stood in silence, just staring. The woman's drink made and placed before her in the time it took the group to find their tongues, by which point she shushed them in order to throw back her beverage. A shudder ran down her wafer thin form at the burn before a gesture of her hand gave them permission to speak,

"Harry?" Disbelief. More of a gasp than a fully formed word, but the woman heard it all the same and scoffed somewhat,

"Whoa, you're a bit familiar. Shouldn't you be using my full name before cracking out the nicknames." A little smirk lifted the corner of her mouth, the lady turning in her seat to face them now, refolding her left leg over her right before offering a hand, "Henrietta Black here, which of course you already knew."

Her face was flat as she regarded them. A minute glower developing on the sallow skinned Potion Masters face, the man looking desperate to say something from over Dumbledore's shoulder,

"Have something to say back there, sir? No need to hold it in." Henrietta sneered at him, tapping the but of her empty glass against the bar and being rewarded with two hollow clunks and the slight tinkling of ice.

With all eyes turned to him, a dangerous look thrown his way from the red head beside him, he lost his nerve. The woman at the bar, Henrietta, smirking briefly before catching the eyes of said red head. _Her_ eyes, or the eyes she inherited from her.

"S'pose I've got some explaining to do?" She grunted, straightening in her seat a bit and gratefully smiling at the bartender who'd wordlessly refilled her glass. The burly man gestured to the seats and a small semi-circle formed around her as she took a long drag of her cigarette and subsequently discarded it.

"Wh-Why?" Lily choked out eventually, her hands wringing at her side as a slack but desperate expression settled on the face of her husband, "All this time, you never said anything?!"

"We..." James, arguably seeming more distraught than his beloved, "We... we thought you were-"

Henrietta turned away, tucking a strand of her long her behind her ear and briefly fiddling with her slanted bangs, tucking the hand she used under her chin as she rested her elbow on the bar-top,

"Professor Dumbledore and Sirius obviously knew. Jem does too, but he's obviously not here." She shrugged, not looking as the quartet of people she had not addressed by name (scruffy haired Sirius Black making ignoring everyone besides the bartender and the Hogwarts Headmaster occupied by a black and gold cocktail menu), "But, effectively, I told everyone who mattered that I'm Harry and this-" a flippant gesture down her body, "-is what happened to me."

"Why didn't you-" A furious snarl, one met with,

"Cause it was none of your **damn** business." A snapped interruption. Fiery gaze on the suddenly incensed Potions Master. The greasy haired man inflating with fury for the briefest of moments, before being cowed by the bestial growl of the bartender, a soft silence settling over the room.

Henrietta turned her gaze to some of the other patrons, the lot of them failing to hide their surreptitious eavesdropping. She shook her head and levelled such a heavy glare at the centaur trio that they gulped down their tankards and hastily shuffled out of the building. The hag and the banshee took the bartender hopping over the counter with his wand in hand to take the hint.

The click of the lock echoed around the room, the bartender dismissed with another sweet smile from the lady he'd been serving. The group finally left alone.

She rolled back her shoulders until they clicked, she downed her drink in a trio of sharp gulps, goosebumps having risen across the pale exposed skin of her arms and shoulders. A sidelong look was hurled the Potters way before she unleashed a sigh that could blow down a building,

"Quit with that look. Whilst I'm still buzzed, I'll explain what happened..."

(-)

_Presenting..._

**Henrietta Black: **

**and the Gun Toting Maid**


End file.
